One of the most common goals in today's society is to lose weight. Often people try to look for easy ways to shed pounds and turn to fad diets, pills and even surgery. However, the best and fastest way to lose a lot of weight is to increase your metabolism through proper dieting and exercise. The mixture of cardiovascular activity, and correct nutrition and eating habits will not only help you cut weight, but will also help prevent you from gaining weight in the future.
Diet and Nutrition
Although it seems counter-intuitive, skipping meals to decrease your caloric intake can actually have a negative effect on your dieting goals. Instead, you should eat small meals more often. This will effectively help you speed up your metabolism. An increased metabolism helps break down the food you intake rather than store the extra calories as fat. By eating a small meal every two hours, you are forcing your metabolism to stay active for the entire day, but not providing your body too much food to handle. In addition, this will prevent you from being hungry, which can often lead to overeating.
Along with changing your eating pattern, you need to decrease your total caloric intake as well as provide your body with proper nutrients. The key is to check the label of all the food you put in your body. Avoid food with saturated fat, trans fat, sugar and simple carbohydrates. Instead, look for food that is low in calories and high in vitamins and minerals. An example of a healthy, small meal is half a turkey sandwich, or a cup of yogurt with a banana. Other food that is good to eat includes all kinds of fruit, vegetables, lean meats, fish, unsalted nuts, egg whites, wheat grains and oatmeal.
Exercise
In addition to eating properly, it is important to establish consistent activity in your daily routine in order to burn calories, burn fat and speed up your metabolism. Exercise is the best way to jump-start your metabolic rate. Aerobic exercise is the most common form of cardiovascular training to lose weight. This consists of increasing your heart rate and keeping it elevated at a fixed rate for a prolonged period of time. Running, biking and swimming are all effective methods of aerobic training. Start with a 5-minute warm-up phase, then pick a pace that is difficult, yet possible to maintain for the duration of your workout. Aim to exercise for 15 to 45 minutes a day. For best results, participate in cardiovascular training three to four times a week.
If you are first starting out and do not feel comfortable participating in aerobic training, there are other ways for you to start being active. Look for regular routine things you can do to increase constant movement. For example, when you drive to the store, park as far away as you can in order to walk further. Always take the stairs instead of the elevator. In addition, you can start walking your dog, or simply taking long walks as a replacement for aerobic training.
